Season SIX OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

That is odd. Every time I pre-order a set (in this case, it was $74.79) I initially get charged that very amount once they ship the item. Few days later I get a notice informing me that my refund/savings is being processed. I never had to ask customer service for it, and they never forgot to give me that savings.

 

Anyone else excited about getting the finale to "Time's Arrow?" I've held off watching the first part on the Season Five set and sort of regret that they didn't do a two-hour version like other season-enders.

But I understand that the "Unification" duo was deemed more important given the Spock connection. What's interesting about that is that the two parts of "Unification" play really well as two individual stories. The first part is the discovery of the Spock connection on Romulus and getting there. The second part is the real story with Spock in the mix.

"Time's Arrow" on the other hand is more of a continuous story that needs both parts for resolution. That's my feeling anyway. I'm not going to lose any sleep over any of this, for sure.

I did a late Amazon order of Season 6 (Sunday, I think) after the confirmation of their price-drop. With Prime, I might be getting it today. Last I checked it was at my post office and "Out For Delivery", so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Harry

 

^^hell ya, I love Time's Arrow and the Mark Twain that actor evokes.

 

A few months ago.

Yes, that's the way it usually works for me, too. Maybe I didn't wait long enough.

Anyway, I wrote back and the same CSR agreed to "make things right" and credit me for the difference. She didn't acknowledge whether she originally made a mistake, or whether Amazon's policy has changed or is changing.

I'm happy for now, but when Season 7 rolls around I'll be much more cautious and not order until the price is lowered.

 

I watched Time's Arrow Part I yesterday, so I'm ready to go for when it arrives today.

Another aspect of why we didn't get the combined Time's Arrow release is that CBS-D is working on seasons 5 and 6, which is the first time they are working on consecutive seasons. For BOBW and Redemption, they worked on both parts at the same time instead of Modern Video to maintain the same look for both parts. This time around, there's no such need.

 

I'll watch Times Arrow together. Last night was the special features and gag reel.

Speaking of special features, man some of the behind the scenes staff can be really dry. I was really hoping (and maybe my expectations were too high) that we would have special features that went beyond what was happening with the show, maybe something along the lines of what Fandom was like when a season was going on. That's what we kind of got in Seasons 1-3, and Season 5 focused on Roddenberry but Season 4 and 6 honestly have felt kind of lazy and DVD rehashed.

The first part of the documentary felt so out of place because half of it was focused on DS9 which I felt like was a rehash of what we got of the DS9 season 1 DVD set. The back half and part 2 of the documentary just felt really boring, even though there were some interesting moments.

Part 3 of the documentary was the best, mainly because it focused on the cast, mainly Whoopi Goldberg and John DeLancie.

The Chain of Command feature was the best of the bunch this time around. Loved the Ronny Cox interview, but I was surprised they got the actress who played probably my favorite Admiral in Star Trek, Admiral Naychayav. Good find Blu Ray crew. Loved her stories on how she got the part and how she keeps notes of the characters she plays. These extra sets are worth the extra price and I might go back and get Unification.

 

I would've loved them to have done a TV Movie edition of that story. I guess to make it work, it would've needed Whoopi Goldberg on the audio commentary and more of her thoughts on playing Guinan in the documentary.

 

Luck was with me, and Mr. Postman delivered TNG Season Six on Blu-ray today. As I mentioned above, my plan was to immediately watch the ender of Season Five and do a "Time's Arrow" double feature to kick things off.

The look was consistent across the two episodes, so it made for a nice experience. Man, I really have to congratulate CBD-Digital and the work they're doing on these episodes. For years after the onset of HDTV we heard how impossible it would be to get STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - and indeed any TV series of that era - into high definition.

I was fairly resigned to have these shows be "relics" of another era and then through this miraculous restoration effort, they've managed the impossible.

So often we get into a comfort level when watching great pictures and listening to great sound on today's equipment and gradually this wonderful restoration begins to just look "normal." As one watches them, the eye-popping factor becomes commonplace and we might forget how truly miraculous it all is.

Then we play a "Next Week" trailer, see the old transfer quality, and realize all over again just how good good can be.

I never bought the "Unification" two-parter, and so far have not considered "Chain Of Command". Am I really missing anything? I did get the "Best Of Both Worlds" and "Redemption" discs on Blu-ray and justified those by knowing I was getting an extra episode from the next season early. These other two are included in the series set and are nicely included on the same disc, unlike the DVD versions which often split them with the rigid four-to-a-disc format.

Harry

 

Same here, but I only got "Best of both Worlds." I won't be getting redemption but I feel like I need Chain of Command for the Ronny Cox extras alone.

 

Man am I glad Chain of Command was the standalone instead of Time's Arrow. Mark Twain was just as grating in glorious bluray As cool as Data's head was, that episode was too silly to me. I think Chain of Command is my favorite out of all the combined standalones.

So many good episodes in this season. Also Picard's love interest in Lessons is smoking hot.

 

I was watching that recently and noticed she could darn near be Beverly Crusher's twin! (Or sister)

 

I think Mark Twain got even more annoying on the blu ray set. I was watching the episodes tonight and I was even wondering why did they include Clemens anyway? What purpose did he serve other than criticizing the 24th century? I kind of wish they had focused more on Jack London, but he did play the "Young man with big dreams" trope so maybe it's good that they didn't.

Anyone else like Realm of Fear? It's probably not my favorite Barcley episode, but it's up there. Part of it was we finally got to see what happens during transport (Which looked beautiful in HD by the way), but it was using Barcley in a great way. Also, it felt very TNG, with the whole microbes in the transporter thing. I actually forgot how much I loved this episode until tonight.

Not looking forward to revisiting Man of the People again, or as I like to call the episode that gave Deanna Troi a bad hair day until the 7th season. Still, it's been a while and I will watch them all, and I'm even looking forward to seeing Aquiel again so go figure.

 

I just finished Realm of Fear. Looking really good so far.

Wow, Sirtis got a serious tan over the break.

 

I'm not a fan of episodes where trek travel into earth's past in general, unless it is on the holodeck. With this one they really went overboard trying to make them run into famous people. I think they had too much going on at once. Time travel, time loops, historical people, guinan's thing, data's head, too much going on.

So many bad moments with Twain. It is so bad its good. Picard meets famous author Mark Twain and all he says is "sorry gotta run, wish I coulda stayed and interacted with you." But the funniest part is how he pops up out of nowhere at the end on the bridge.

I think they should have focused more on the Guinan thing really. Ditch the historical characters and make the entire thing about Guinan.

I just watched Ship in a Bottle, and man that is an awesome episode. I can't decide which holodeck eps are better, the Moriarty episodes or the Leah Brahms, both great.

 

Kind of feel bad for Hardin though. I've been watching X-Files and he played a major role as Deep Throat in X-Files' first season. It was a good role and showed how much the actor was pretty good. They wasted his talents in these two episodes, and that's unfortunate.

Some of my favorite trek episodes take place on earth in the past though, like Future's End, City on the Edge of Forever, and Past Tense. This episode could have worked too, if they hadn't made Twain so annoying.

 

Because Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain was the first author to write a story about travelling back in time, even though he mostly used it as a vehicle of satire to criticize the romantic notions people in the 19th Century had about the Medieval Ages.

And, of course, it's not without (self-) irony. Clemens suggested it would be possible to change the past while "Time's Arrow" explicitly states that you can't or won't.

Bob

 

Will you look at that? http://trekcore.com/blog/2014/06/okudas-comment-on-timescape-blu-ray-fx-error/

I think it's a bit odd. Previous fixes were based on our assumptions where those beams should originate from.

In "Timescape" the emanating point is explicitly referred to be the "deflector array", but the visual information still does not match the vocal one.

Bob

 

Yeah, it's an "artistic choice". Hmmm

 

That is odd, but we can't comment either way on whether this is right or wrong because we don't know what the original artists intended. I assume, by "after some analysis", the Okudas asked the original VFX artists to see what they said? (EDIT: or read their original notes, perhaps?) Otherwise, aren't they just guessing too?

You could, arguably, state that many of the 'fixes' so far should NOT have been corrected. The energy beam from the captain's yacht in EaF, for instance, looks better coming from the middle rather than being off to the left of the screen, even if it's 'technically wrong' (the composition looks slightly imbalanced in the new version). The original shot of the phaser from the torpedo tube in Darkmok looks better than the re-used stock shot they replaced it with. The movie-style Enterprise refit schematic in The Naked Now is arguably the correct one to use because Gene Roddenberry considered it a retcon and "what the Enterprise was always supposed to look like" at the time the episode was made. All arguably valid artistic choices, in my opinion.

I think it's more likely that the shot in Timescape wasn't changed because it appears multiple times in the episode from different angles (sometimes moving, IIRC?) and it might have been too much work to bother with. Or they just missed it. Or maybe they're being completely honest and they do have information to suggest it was intentional. The windows on the neck are lit up, after all.

All that said, however, I think they should have changed it.